


Give Away

by Theoroark



Series: Nobody's Fault [7]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pharmercy Week 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 23:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: Angela reflects on the parts of Ana that Fareeha never knew.





	Give Away

Angela hadn’t even thought about it, it had just slipped out. It was the first day of Ramadan and they were hosting iftar for the Amaris at their apartment. Angela felt the immense pressure of having to impress an entire family of people and Fareeha, who normally kept a cool head, seemed just as anxious. Angela had not thought through the repercussions before she opened her mouth. Fareeha had just been wondering aloud why her Uncle Mahmud had not RVSPed and Angela had offered, “He probably doesn’t want to come if Salma and her spouse are coming.”

 

Fareeha turned to her, setting down the plates she had been carrying. “What did you say?” she asked. Angela finally began thinking, saw where this was leading, saw no way out, and sunk down in her seat.

 

“He, ah, is very anti-Omnic,” she said. “And Salma married one and, so, you know. They had a falling out and I don’t believe they ever made up.”

 

“Oh.” Fareeha stared down at the plates. “No one told me that.”

 

“It happened a long time ago,” Angela said. One part of her was angrily reminding herself that everything she said was just making things worse, another part could not tolerate the look on Fareeha’s face and had to say something. “It might not even still be the case. I don’t remember your mom talking about it the last few years.”

 

Fareeha nodded. “Okay,” she said. “That’s one less mouth to feed, I guess.” She picked up the plates and continued to set up. Angela stared at the eggplant she was peeling and tried to catalogue all the different ways she was incredibly stupid.

 

Iftar went off seamlessly, because Fareeha was running it, and Fareeha always kept her cool. Angela sat between grandaunts and watched her wife smile and laugh and even though they were completely polar moods, she was reminded of Ana’s funeral. It had been the first time she had seen Fareeha since she had started basic training. Angela had wanted a moment alone with her. So she could help her, Angela had told herself. She was so good at convincing herself she was acting selflessly.

 

In any case, she had not had the slightest opportunity. Fareeha had always been surrounded by people, murmuring things to her, gripping her shoulders, sobbing at her. Angela had not seen her break once. She had kept a solemn, steady face the entire funeral, murmuring things back to the mourners, holding their hands, providing them with kleenex. The closest Angela had seen her get to stuttering was at the end. Angela had been heading to her car and she saw Commander Reyes and Fareeha standing beside the Commander’s black sedan. He had said something to her and she had taken a step towards him and then hugged him like he was the only thing keeping her upright. Then she had let him go, he had gotten into his car, and Angela got into hers feeling as though she had glimpsed something horribly private.

 

This night was nothing like that. It was joyous and about all the family they had gained, not what they had lost. But Angela still could not find a moment alone with her wife, or a moment when Fareeha’s mask broke.

 

That night in bed, Angela had said, “I’m sorry,” and Fareeha had shaken her head and sighed.

 

“I’m not mad at you.”

 

“I know,” Angela said. She twisted her hands in her lap. “But I was… thoughtless. I know this is a sensitive topic for you. I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s fine,” Fareeha said mechanically, then she closed her eyes. Angela watched her. “I just… I thought family, I would have a handle on,” Fareeha said after a moment.

 

Angela swallowed. “Yeah.”

 

“I mean, I was never super close with any of them. The funeral was the first time I had met some of them. But she didn’t keep me from them. She wasn’t ashamed of them or anything. I thought…”

 

When Fareeha did not say anything else, Angela spoke. “It was something unpleasant about your family. She wanted to protect you from it. Lots of parents do that.”

 

“Okay,” Fareeha said, and Angela winced.

 

“I know that doesn’t change things.”

 

“No,” Fareeha said. “It doesn’t.”

 

Her mask fell and her eyes welled up. Angela took her hand and squeezed it, and Fareeha’s head fell onto her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Fareeha,” Angela said quietly. “I wish I could just… give you all my memories of her.”

 

Fareeha hiccuped a laugh. “It’s okay,” she said. “I know it’s okay. I know she loved me. It just hurts remembering that she didn’t respect me.”

 

“She respected you, Fareeha, she did.”

 

“Okay,” Fareeha said.

 

“I know it wasn’t enough, though.”

 

Fareeha cried in earnest. Angela readjusted so that she was hugging her and Fareeha sagged against her. Angela rubbed small circles on her back.

 

“No,” Fareeha whispered, between shuddering breaths. “It wasn’t.”

 

Angela moved them so that they were laying down, and reach over and turned off the light. They lay there, Angela rubbing Fareeha’s back, Fareeha’s breath growing calmer and more even until it deepened into the sounds of sleep. Angela smiled and kissed the top of her head, and lay there and thought.

 

Tonight was different than the funeral. Fareeha came to her now. Fareeha opened up before her, when she wouldn’t open up to anyone else. Her choice baffled Angela at times and it was all she could do to honor it. Fareeha gave her so much of herself and try as she might Angela never felt as though she were giving enough back. She had met Ana when she was seventeen and lost her when she was 31 and even though Fareeha had double that time, she felt guilty. And yet Angela still held moments of Ana to herself.

 

Some of the things she kept from Fareeha because she knew Fareeha would not want to hear them. The times Angela had hated Ana for some utilitarian call that meant some people would die so many others would live. The sight of Ana sitting in a drop ship carving another notch into her rifle. Everything Ana had told her in the confines of doctor and patient.

 

(The physicals leading up to her death, Ana had admitted to increased drinking and difficulty sleeping and Angela had written it off, because Ana was untouchable. When she read about Ana’s last reckless act before her death she had remembered those physicals and dry heaved into her lab’s sink. That, she did not tell Fareeha because she was too ashamed.)

 

She had not been lying to Fareeha. She would give Fareeha everything she knew about Ana in a heartbeat. Angela still missed Ana so much that it hurt. What Ana had left her with still was not enough and she felt so guilty, wanting more from a dead woman who had, at the end of the day, only been her boss. Sometimes she remembered a preference for certain tea or a snippet of a song hummed and she couldn’t tell if it was a memory of her mother or of Ana and that disgusted her. She had not been lying to Fareeha.

 

Angela was just very good at convincing people that she was acting selflessly.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @tacticalgrandma on tumblr/twitter if you want to talk to me there!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and comments/kudos would mean the world to me <3


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